ViiV agreement with patent pool should help more children receive HIV treatment - Oxfam

Responding to an agreement between ViiV and the medicine patent pool to license Mohga Kama-Yanni, Oxfam senior policy adviser, said:

"We welcome the license agreed between Viiv and the medicine patent pool for abacavir medicine which will mean that more children can get this WHO recommended medicine.

"The terms are better than those in the pool's first agreement with Gilead - there are fewer restrictions on manufacturing and a wider geographical coverage, although Abacavir is already available in generic forms in some countries.

"We urge ViiV to extend the license to cover adult population and to license their new medicines once approved so that the maximum possible number of HIV patients who need these medicines an get them."

The MPP was created by UNITAID to overcome IP barriers to access to HIV drugs by enabling generic competition which lowers the prices of medicines and the formation of better combination of HIV medicines necessary for effective treatment.

Kamal-Yanni continued: "We urge all pharmaceutical companies to collaborate with the patent pool as a way of massively increasing the number of people living with HIV who get the life-saving medicines they need. It is shameful that major pharmaceutical companies including Merck, Johnson & Johnson and Abbott refuse to join the pool."